A Manifesto
I’m in Colombia, sitting in my grandmother’s living room beneath a statue of a Virgin digging her heel into the neck of a wide-mouthed snake, when I hear it. “Pues,” a voice from the kitchen radio says, “Los ha llamado países de mierda.” Later I will hear voices from U.S. radio stations debate whether it was shit hole or shit house, but in the moment the voices make no distinction. “Shit countries,” they say, and then they begin to list the countries that may or may not qualify. “Well,” one voice states, “We also fall into that category, no?” El Salvador? Absolutely. Haiti? Yes. Venezuela? “It wasn’t mentioned but…” they are pretty sure it counts. Mexico? “Very likely.” And Colombia? “By that logic…and all of Africa, too. Of course.”
Of course.
“By that logic…”
As I stand up I feel myself clench my fists and grit my teeth. I have hot coals in the pit of my stomach, and I chip my teeth and burn my lips spitting sparks.
Because I know what it’s like growing up in a country people tell you is shit, thinking, By that logic…by that logic…what am I, what are we, what are you? Because I remember hearing some variation of this sentence so many times as a child I once asked my mother, “Are we born bad, mamá? Or does it happen later?” And I keep imagining children on this side of that sentence, and on the other side too. By that logic…. Thinking, What are we? Thinking, What are they? A mouth full of ash, a belly full of burning coals—grief that makes my limbs heavy, turns my heart into Sisyphean stone.
Above me there is an antique Virgin with a face worn down to faint, pious shadows. She digs her heel into the nape of a snake’s neck while balancing on an upturned crescent moon like the edge of a broken scythe, and I yell at the speaker until my teeth chatter and my voice trembles.
I yell until my throat hurts and I have to wipe my eyes with my sleeve, and my mother comes over and tries to talk me down. “Lina,” she keeps repeating, “calm down, calm down.” Above me the snake is frozen mid-scream, wide-mouthed and dragon-scaled. “Lina,” my mother says, “What are you going to do about it? Calm down.” Throwaway, meaningless, “Calm down. What could you even do? What could you even say?” Because my mother worries about me, my mother is afraid for me. “Mecha corta,” she calls me. Little short fuse. “Calm down.”
Back in the U.S., the television flashes the name of a país de mierda and shows images of men with neck tattoos being led in and out of courtrooms and countries. Another name flashes, and the television shows a bloated-belly kid running barefoot after a pale cameraman in cargo shorts.
“Calm down, Lina. Calm down.”
Ignorant and innocent, or murderous and monstrous, and nothing in between.
“That’s us,” I tell her, “Nothing in between, right? Países de mierda.” Artless and artful in countries without art, in dirt castles, in cities of manure, in oceans of piss. “Is that us? Is that it?”
“Calm down Lina, calm down.” Little short fuse, I rest my elbows on my knees, my face in my hands, while a barefoot Virgin balances on the razor edge of an upturned crescent moon and thrusts her heel deep into the base of a snake’s skull.
“What are you going do about it?” She asks me. “Calm down,” she pleads. “What could you even say to something like that?”
Lina M. Ferreira C.-V.
*
To help more directly, please visit:
Hispanic Federation: http://hispanicfederation.org
Hope for Haiti: https://hopeforhaiti.com
Salvadoran American Humanitarian Foundation: https://www.sahf.org